February 16, 2009

Writers' Union gets Whiter Teeth

Interesting bit of news for writers. Well, make that those writers who have earned a reasonable enough reputation for themselves. The Globe and Mail published the article Making the Literary Life a Little Less Precarious, which suggests a medical and dental benefits plan should be coming down the pipe.

The Writers' Coalition Benefits Package is said to level the playing field a little, allowing full-time writers to have access to extended benefits. I have to hand it to the Writers' Union, really. They've managed to wrangle a fair amount of help for writers...err, make that its members. They're on top of the various Internet publishing issues, such as Google's settlement with publishers and authors, and now benefits and pensions for struggling artists.

Pretty soon we'll have unionized writing, where all members have to sign contracts that allow them to only write literature that adheres to certain party lines. Next stop, large campaign posters for Stalin. Okay, I'm being facetious. If it means the union can help a guy pay for major dental work and still allow him to cover the rent, I'm all for it.

3 comments:

Sam said...

It will be interesting to see what happens with this. I agree that it's important to give people a chance to earn a decent living, especially since I hope to be one. On the other hand, "writer" is a pretty broad definition, making it a hard-to-protect job.

If you get a chance, check out the South Park episode "Canada on Strike."

Harry Tournemille said...

Fair point. The guidelines to get into the Writers' Union have a particular definition of "writer". No self-publishing, a certain number of books etc. Probably enough to determine qualification for benefits, I imagine. Too bad blogs don't count. We'd be in for sure...

Sam said...

We'll get there.